INCLUSIVE LANGUAGE

The expression 'Inclusive language’ refers to some communications changes that we have introduced in 2023 that better reflect ours values and our vision of family.

Families are a unique set of people linked by love, affection and sharing of experiences. There is no single form of family, but a wide range of structures that reflect human diversity. There are families made up of a mother and a father, families without children, families with same-sex parents, single-parent families, extended families with grandparents and uncles playing an important role, adoptive families, and many other variations. Each family is unique in its composition and history, and all deserve to be recognized and celebrated.

Lo Stivaletto has been connecting families since 2016. At the Stivaletto we want to celebrate all families and all gender identities.
For this reason we have decided to adopt a inclusive language in all our communication and introduce two new characters into our texts, the schwa, "ǝ", in the singular, and the long schwa, “ɜ”, in the plural.

The schwa is pronounced completely neutral, keeping the tongue in the center of the mouth and the muscles relaxed.
The schwa allows us to include everyone, including people who don't identify with traditional gender pronouns.

The use of the schwa is not yet officially codified and at the beginning it can be a bit tiring, we realize that. It is not the way of writing that we teach in our courses, but it is the way of expression in which we recognize ourselves most as a community. We hope it is for you too.

With these small big changes we hope to fulfill the role we aspire for Lo Stivaletto, a network to connect all families who love Italian culture, regardless of the structure and identities that compose them.

It is a path of growth and evolution, not without errors and missteps. If you have feedback, suggestions for improvement, we will be happy to listen to them and use them to continue improving.